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Me, 100yrs old

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loss of faith…

Sundays is normally associated with going to church, a day of prayers and worship especially for Christians – world over.

Not for Xs. For me its associated with sleeping in late, the day i spend with my family, the day i make my famous bone-soup (iNVITES WILL BE SENT SOON) and/or staying indoors chilling with my tusker….

I cant remember the last time i stepped into a church.

Why you ask? Well my faith has dwindled over the years and its now in the blink of extinction.

I was born and grew up in a protestant – Methodists- family. As a small boy, I never missed Sunday & christmas services, not because of my strong faith but because on Sundays we got the once-a-week bath and we would wear our ‘Sunday’ best and shoes.

When i joined Form 1, i got ‘saved’ and would attend these bible studies and sing in the choir on sundays. Later the same year, my Mum (May her soul rest in eternal peace) formalised her marriage to my step dad, who was a catholic. Now because of this we (my mum and myself) had to change from methodist and start attending Catholic Mass.

This is when my troubles started. The transition was not very smooth, i had to learn all these new things akina hail mary’s sijui nini nini, when to stand, when to sing, when to kneel, ash sunday…etc and to make matters i was 14, young, very impressionable and lacking in patience.

In form 3, I changed schools to Isiolo Boys – the 2nd notorious school after Shimo la tewa at the time. My new school was near home and had these outings every sunday, 8.00 am to 5 pm. You choose if you wanted to go to church or go home. I choose the latter.

Digress

The school board had approved these sunday outings to reduce incidences of students sneaking out of the school all the time to go to town. It got to be so bad one time they introduced one hour outings every Wednesday lunchtime. Downfall was that many students never came back for afternoon classes.

This school had no official gate and some of the panya routes had been converted to unofficial routes used also by the teachers… Maybe i should do a proper post about my former school

My time with God was now limited to only when schools were closed and only because mum would force me to go to church….

Check in Campus and i get introduced to Philosophy. Hard questions were thrown my way.

Is there a God or was he created by figment of imagination of masses who needed ‘big brother’ to be looking over them?

If he existed, how does he look like?

etc etc etc

My faith suffers. I didnt give up – i still did like 4 masses a year…..

The last straw came in when i started hanging out with this scrabble buddy who happened to be a Jehovah witness. He was very keen on converting me, he worked very hard at it and would preach to me whenever opportune moment presented itself.

He was very good but instead of converting me, i lost my faith. It was never the same again, whenever i attend mass, i would be analysing & mind-criticise everything that came out the pastors mouth. I tried changing back to Methodist but by this time i was a gonna.

I refuse to be called an atheist or a pagan (yes, am in denial)….. maybe the right term to describe me is agnostic.

Hey Xs, I wholly agree. As I wade through the murky waters of my twenties, I can so see your track. At my school, atheists and agnostics have a joint association, and they are categorized under religious groups. There is a certain irony there, not lost on me or other community members.
Here is something few ppl ask though, what did we have before missionaries, and if all we did was African Trad religion, surely the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, and we lost the essence of our culture when our forefathers embraced the missionary life.

Hehe, XS, good luck navigating those murky waters of religion (or lack of). As you can see, you’re not alone. I’m one of those people who goes to church out of tradition, on and off. When I go too long without setting foot in a church, I do feel like something’s missing. Mostly though, I go to socialize. But, I do believe someday somewhere, I’ll find my way back to God. In the meantime, I’ll wander and question.

Like a week ago or so I did a post on God and all things Christian http://pinkmemoirs.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/52/ and after much thought, I decided not to even try understand it all. I go to Church out of habit (was raised a PCEA) and to have fun (ICC is fun, no denominational stuff here), and to try connect with God (born again by definition). I tithe out of fear that God will punish me and take away all my money, and at the moment I’m very worried because Pastor said that God had told him that if all the people engaging in ‘sexual sin’ don’t cease, he’s an all consuming fire. In short, I won’t be going to Church for a while

that you are questioning- might mean you need to set out to find the answers. Not from another man- coz they will give you their version of how and who God is. Go to the Man Himself- and surely the one who tells the Sun where to stand can not fail to answer you.

Funnily enough I went to a very strict catholic secondary school and that strengthened my faith even more- and it was not the Catholic faith infact I got suspended from school for singing and praying “PENTACOSTAL”.

[…] had stayed like over two years, not like before then I was actively visiting any. I could relate to XS @ here… Somehow after staying out successfully late without booze and having so much fun, something came to […]